Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Okay - I'll admit it: it doesn't take much to buy me off. I've bitched about buying and downloading mp3's to Linux machines and Amazon's non-support for a while - in fact those posts are some of the most visited on my site. But still I stick with Amazon. It's like some trailer park relationship. But now I'm willing to kiss and make up because now Amazon Prime memberships get FREE MUSIC STREAMING! (I'm doing the happy dance). I signed up for Prime around Christmas because (I told myself) I needed a package in a hurry. While normally I might have just popped for the extra shipping, the fact that Prime accounts get free 2 day shipping AND video streaming was enough to get me to fork over the cost of a Prime membership. You can do a free one month trial, so why not?  I don't watch a lot of stuff, but I watch some, and it's a nice deal. I even bought myself a Roku device (from Amazon!) for Father's Day this year to make it easier. But fr...

The other day I awoke to the news that pianist Dave Brubeck had passed away at age 91, one day short of his birthday, December 6. To say he was a jazz giant is only to illustrate the weakness of the written word, compared to his chosen language, music. I first got turned onto him as a twenty-something who had grown bored with his dorm roon collection of rock and roll. KERA (local public radio station) at the time played classical during the day, and jazz at night. My first purchase was a double LP called The Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall . To say it knocked my socks off is to further illustrate the weakness of the written word. He was born in the San Francisco Bay area. After graduating from the College of the Pacific (where his inability to read music created a bit of a scandal), he was drafted and served in George Patton's Third Army. While in the army he formed one of the army's first multi-racial bands. It was then that he first met his long-time collaborato...

Well, I certainly can't fault him for preparing this in the first place. Leaving it where someone can use it to ridicule and generally add insult to injury - now that's a different matter. I am, of course, referring to the premature (by several lifetimes) launch of Team Romney's Transition Website, screen-captured in all its glory by Taegan Goddard and shared on his Political Wire website. See more pages on Political Wire , including a jobs page (you too can join Team Romney!), and Mitt's plans for his inauguration. Taegan Goddard says, "The site was quickly taken down but I saved screenshots ."   I can't thank Taegan enough, no to mention the low level web tech who forgot to take down the site right after Mitt conceded. As a web pro, I don't fault him for creating a site - things like this don't happen overnight. What I do object to is the pompous, arrogant tone, which screams, "You people have had your fun - the grownups are here...

I noticed where the recent production of "Atlas Shrugged, Part 1," will be released on DVD and Blu ray tomorrow. Get ready to relive the excitement of the first third of Ayn Rand's colossal door stop again and again. Since I never saw it, (nor plan to), I'm hardly qualified to offer up any meaningful criticism. I'll leave that to the good reviewers on Amazon's website . Not unsurprisingly, fans are once again using this a forum to accuse the professional critics who panned this epic of all sorts of dastardly liberal bias (imagine that). They've racked up the ratings to an average 4 stars (out of 5). Sample comment: "The movie is well made - the quality is actually quite good. Acting was generally good to excellent. Camera work was good; although the low budget resulted in a missing camera angle here and there. Special effects were consistently well done. The story, of course, is exceptional; and it is well-told in this movie." Hmm...if...

I have to hand it to Netflix: they may be witless, but they aren't complete dunderheads. After the tidal wave of criticism from their customers and a free-falling stock price, they've figured out that just maybe they should not split the streaming and DVD-by-mail businesses asunder. CEO Reed Hasting (how much longer will I be able to make that statement?) posted on the company blog today that: It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. Bravo - that man must have an MBA. So, again this plays out more and more like the saga of New Coke . By the way, in case you've forgotten how that ended, Coke actually gained market by re-introducing Old Coke, er, Coke Classic. Other than looking clueless by tampering with a classic, the whole "fiasco" solidified Coke's place in the market. So who's to say how ill-advised all this seems in th...

If you know British actor Hugh Laurie primarily from his hit TV show House, you may be unaware of his previous role on the BBC production of "Jeeves and Wooster," based on the stories of P. G. Wodehouse (both the TV series and the books they were based on are hilarious). Laurie was a comic genius in these, but he also displayed his musical talents, performing (in character as Bertie Wooster) novelty songs of the era. I was always left wanting just a little more. I want no more! The multi-talented Mr Laurie has released a CD entitled Let Them Talk inspired by his love of New Orleans blues. It is great stuff!!! I downloaded it from the Amazon MP3 store (my favorite source of downloaded music these days) and am marveling at the goodness of it all. He sings, plays guitar and piano, and is joined by a number of outstanding guests, such as Dr. John and Tom Jones. Hit his website for more info and some downloads. Here's a sampling to give you a taste (I own a mahogany...

Glenn Beck is now officially too crazy for Fox News. Who'd a thunk it? While the Washington Post trumpeted  in its  Entertainment section  the split between Beck and Fox would "dissolve a 27-month marriage beset by outside pressures and internal tensions,"  the Fox News website  tactfully noted in the  Business News , "the show has been losing viewers recently." Who says advertiser boycotts don't work? Well, this is old news. What I'm wondering is what the Mad Prophet will do next? Radio is an obvious answer, but without Beck's visuals (chalkboard, tears, pacing the set), that's bound to get boring before long. Americans may have have a love affair with freak shows but they like to see the object of their affection in living color. My prediction is this will play out as it does with other celebrity freak shows: escalating crazy (until the public gets bored with that), followed by a reboot of the story arc in the form of some so...

This happened a couple of days ago but I've been under the weather and it still gripes my ass. If you were a loyal TCU fan (I'm an alumni) and foolishly chose to watch the Rose Bowl Parade on NBC / channel 5 here in the Dallas/Fort Worth television market you probably waited patiently to see the TCU float and Horned Frog marching band. Alas, you would have been rewarded with bitterness. About 30 seconds before the Frogs came a marching, NBC decided to cut away for a couple of minutes of commercials, huzzah!  After they return to parade coverage after pimping for their sponsors, you could hear the faint strains of the Horn Frogs fading into the distance. FAIL! All we get is about 5 seconds of a tape-delay insert shot. No float. Booyah! To which I say, "What the fuck?" They had a list of the parade participants and the order in which they appeared - it's not like TCU snuck up on them. Some jack-leg producer just decided if ONE OF THE FUCKING SCHOOLS IN...

Yesterday the Apple website breathlessly teased us about an announcement to be made today that promised to change our world. Today they revealed the Beatles are (finally) available on iTunes. Are you freaking kidding me? Don't get me wrong -- I like the Beatles, it's just that this has to be one of the lamest announcements ever. While the history of the conspicuous absence of the Beatles audio library on iTunes is interesting, in a geeky sort of way, it's not like mp3's of Beatles songs weren't available on the web in great abundance (albeit through unauthorized channels). Any one possessing a CD, borrowed or otherwise, can rip Beatles tunes to their heart's delight. My iPhone is full of Beatles songs. So what? All this means is now Apple ( and whoever owns the rights to the catalog now ) makes even more money off Beatlemania. Yawn.

It's a sad thing to see stuff you remember as cutting edge now relegated to nostalgia. But better there than forgotten altogether. PCMag.com posted an amusing slideshow / feature entitled 12 Forgotten Online Games a couple of days ago. The kicker was these were all pre-internet "What?" you say. "There was online before the internet?" Indeed. Dial up services and games abounded, not to mention the grandfather of all community access, the BBS. I had, at various times, an AOL account (using the pre-Windows client), Delphi and CompuServe. And tons of BBS accounts. I was never a huge gamer but I recalled several of the games mentioned in the PCMag story, primarily the BBS "door" games; I had an ongoing friendly rivalry with the SYSOP of the Cat's Eye BBS on his Tradewar 2000 game. I also wasted time on LORD (Lord of Red Dragon) and Planets. My eldest son had a demo account (several, really) on The Realm, which he and one of his friends used t...

For Fathers Day today we caught Toy Story 3 . It was a heck of a show - the guys at Pixar have not lost their touch. We re-watched the Toy Story on blu ray  a couple of weeks ago to prepare ourselves. While the original was groundbreaking in its day, the years since have seen amazing strides in computer animation. Yet despite the technical tour-de-force (see it in 3D if possible), Pixar continues to show the world its real strength is in writing and directing. It's laugh out loud funny. Yet without giving away thing critical, let me say the theater was filled with the sound of choked-back sobs by the end of the show. Hell, I'm not ashamed to admit I was a weepy bastard. We see a couple of sides of Buzz Lightyear we haven't seen before. And new character Ken (Barbie's boyfriend)  puts on some moves I would have never thought possible. And if (like me) you have college students you'll find it especially bittersweet. So go see it - it's a great film. The...

Last Sunday was the LOST-o-thon: 2 hours of recap/interviews with cast and producers, followed by the 2 1/2 hour finale.  And if you wanted to hang around long enough, another hour entirely devoted to LOST on Jimmy Kimmel Live. It was exhausting. Reactions have been mixed. Much of Slashdot-dom hated it . They wanted ANSWERS, god-dammit. And while quite a few long time mysteries were addressed, not all were. So freaking what? A lot of how I processed the finale (as well as the show as whole) is based on things I learned and taught as a once and future painter. I've learned to appreciate and celebrate the power of ambiguity. Works of great art (if television can be art) engage the viewer/audience in the creative process. The viewer essentially finishes the work by layering on their personal interpretation or meaning, based on their life and experiences.  Giving people explicit answers shuts off that dialog. In the days that followed, there has been much discussion about ...

I suspect a lot of you did not get up at the crack of dawn to see the demolition of Texas Stadium. Here's the video (selected after pains-taking reviewing of numerous candidates ). One of the fascinating things about this sort of thing is the surgical precision in which the operation is carried out. This is a controlled implosion, not an explosion. Timing, as they say, is everything. ...By the way, Arlington Taxpayers, you'll be hosting a similar event before you know it.

I first saw Leo Kottke at UTA about 35 years ago. He opened ( opened! ) for poor unsuspecting Jesse Colin Young. Baby-faced Leo came out armed with nothing but a couple of acoustic guitars and astonishing virtuosity and left the crowd howling for more. One of the notable tunes from this period was "Vaseline Machine Gun." That pretty much described Leo's playing. After the intermission, Jesse took the stage only to discover half the  audience had deserted him. Guess what -- they hadn't come to see him. He was visibly annoyed. I saw Leo Kottke tonight at Bass Hall in downtown Ft. Worth. Fortunately Los Lobos, who he opened for, has a pretty loyal and enthusiastic audience. But it was plain to see there were a lot of folks there (like me) for whom Leo was the main event. The lights went down and gray-haired figure wandered to the front of the stage bearing a guitar. Gone was the baby-face, but the goofy grin remained as did the astonishing virtuosity. I was sitt...

Thanks to my friend T-Dawg who tipped me off to the Adventures in Music Online series over at BoingBoing, guestblogged by Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive . Lots of embedded YouTube videos, so the page is a little slow to load, but definitely worth the effort! Here's the video from Adventure 15 - The "Boffo Finish" , which will hopefully whet your appetite. The Nicholas Brothers will astonish you! Stephen Worth makes an interesting point about the cultural illiteracy of today's entertainment consumersm, which he refers to as "pop culture amnesia." I ran into that the other day when I mentioned to a 30-something co-worker that I was going to a Django Reinhardt festival. "Who?" was their response. My youngest son won't bother to watch a movie if it's in black and white, on what I can only assume is the theory that something that old will have nothing to say to him. Complaining about it makes me feel like an ol...